chinese will continue to accumulate soft power wins throughout the world and that disadvantages us from a security perspective and economic perspective. usaid, one interesting thing is farmers in -- one very interesting thing is farmers in illinois and throughout the heartland often sold their crops to usaid or through usaid programs and we did not realize that until usaid programs got dismantled so we are not only harming our national security our economic prosperity in illinois and other places too. >> congressman, thank you so much for the conversation, for your time today. i think the next time we meet on this stage, i think i might be introducing you as senator, so i look forward to that. but please, join me in thanking the congressman. rep. krishnamoorthi: he promoted me twice in like two seconds.

>> welcome to the stage, former national security advisor john bolton. rep. krishnamoorthi: thank you. >> hello again. i am back. i am the chief here at politico and am excited for this next conversation. obviously does not need an introduction. john bolton served as president trump's former national security advisor in his first term before a falling out, and i am sure you know he is a household name on all things national security. serving a number of gop administrations including as ambassador to the u.n. under george w. bush. so let's just start with this. ambassador, there are not a lot of areas where you might agree with someone like laura loomer or rand paul, but this week i think you found one.

what is your take on this new 400 million dollars jet the president wants to accept from qatar to be air force one? amb. bolton: i think it is a bad idea for the qataris as much as it is for us. i came up with the idea yesterday they should just give us $400 million in cash so we can rebuild the airbase in qatar or central command headquarters in tampa. i think they are going to get their reputation tarnished. i think the impression we are going to leave the people is the white house is open for the highest bidder. i don't think trump really expects to get this plane before the end of his term. i think he wants it to fly after he leaves the presidency. rachael: interesting. amb. bolton: that is what triggers the emoluments clause argument. i think the whole thing is unnecessary. speaking as a former passenger on air force one, it is not a flying palace. it is a flying west wing.

it is an office plane. it is not as luxurious as some of the royal families have because it should not be. people have work to do on that plane. but this whole thing is just a further stain on the u.s. reputation. rachael: ethical concerns aside, my gut reaction to this was what i want to fly on a plane gifted from qatar? security and technical reasons. can you get into that? is it safe for the president of the united states to fly on a plane coming from a country that had or has had ties to terrorists? amb. bolton: it is not safe to fly on any other country's plane. that is why we buy planes from boeing. they are taking longer than it should, but i do think it would matter what country gave us the plane. they would still have to strip it down basically to the frame to make sure and redo it which will take an awful lot of work. i don't know whether this plane

has aerial refueling capability, but air force one needs it. it is not just put a hose on the end of the boeing 747 and expect it will do it. it will take a lot of work. and it is all totally unnecessary. rachael: let's talk about iran because there have been a lot of questions about president trump's policy toward iran and what he actually wants. you have people like jd vance, the vice president, saying they don't want war, they don't want to get sucked into war, and we also know michael waltz, who had been reportedly coordinating with the israelis about a potential military action of some sort against iran, he was pushed out. although we don't know if it is because of ideological reasons or more internal drama. people take that, they take different meanings from these things. i am curious, as somebody who worked with president trump, do you think he wants a deal with iran? or is this a check the box and we will go to war? amb. bolton: i think he wants to

do with everybody. that is what he does. he does deals. he does not have a philosophy. he does not have a national grand strategy. he does not do policies. when people describe him as transactional, that is what it is. he was persuaded in early may of 2018 when i was getting him ready to get out of the 2015 obama deal. he was persuaded by french president macron, chancellor merkel of germany to try for a big deal with iran that would include their terrorist activity and ballistic missile program as well as the nuclear program. but at least he understood he had to get out of the 2015 deal. iran will never deal on terrorism or the ballistic missile program and will never deal on the nuclear side either. they have shown no evidence whatsoever that they have changed their strategic position to get nuclear weapons. i think this is a waste of oxygen. and if he does get a deal, it will be a deal that barack obama

would. rachael: would he agree to some proposal where enrichment was only allowed outside the country? would they ever sign off on something like that? they are not. amb. bolton: there is no evidence of that. the eu three as we called them then tried that exact line of negotiation in the early 2000's, that iran could have some nuclear reactors. but have no enrichment or reprocessing capability. no capability to reprocess plutonium out of the spent fuel, which is another road to nuclear weapons. and the iranians just said flatly no. it is the central flaw of the 2015, was to allow iran any uranium enrichment capability whatsoever. we license our nuclear technology for the construction of civil reactors. we typically insist the country

receiving the license commit not to do uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. our arab friends in the region said you will not allow us to do uranium enrichment but you will allow the iranians to. rachael: i was going to say, to somebody who might make the argument, maybe someone in the jd vance wing of the party, that it is ok as long as they are making promises it will not end up with a nuclear weapon, is it that they are lying through their teeth on that? why would it be so bad? amb. bolton: because they are lying through their teeth on it. it is not a question of trust but verify. there is no trust there. there is no verification. there has never been a single inspector of the international atomic energy agency that has ever been on one of iran's military bases where the weaponization work is done. you do not just enrich uranium and light a match and hope it goes off. you have to build a nuclear weapon, which they have been hard at work on.

that has gone unintentionally on scrutinized by the international community. rachael: so basically, you think we will wind up with obama's iran nuclear deal with just a maga label slapped on it? amb. bolton: that is what trump may do. he is making a big mistake. i think this will cause dissension within the republican party. there is some dissension now but not much. i think this will set a lot of people are. i think remember in 2001, the israelis did not ask permission to bomb saddam hussein's reactor. in 2007, the israelis did not ask u.s. permission to bomb the iranian reactor in the syrian desert. and i think this time -- i don't think the israelis will ask permission to go after the iranian program. rachael: that was one of my questions. how are they going to react to these talks? before i get to that, i want to ask a related question. we have seen a lot bipartisan support and praise for president trump from democrats for raising

sanctions on syria. i am curious your take on this. do you feel like mr. art of the deal gave something big away without getting enough in return? amb. bolton: i think he acted far too precipitously. this group that is now in charge in syria used to be the al nusra front, which is an al qaeda affiliate. having abandoned his hair and trimmed his beard and put a coat and tie on instead of combat fatigues, he had a bounty on him for about $10 million for his terrorist activities. of course he is saying he has given up terrorist activities, because he wants? he. he wants -- because he wants? he. s western money. he wants access.

he has a strong background. yes, the man was a terrorist and could well still be. trump asking to exchange diplomatic relations with israel and kick terrorists out, that is fine. he should have gotten that promise before he lifted the sanctions. al nusra should have asked for complete transparency on all of the assad regime's hostage of americans and foreigners, everything in their archives. he should have asked for an international or u.s. inspection of all potential chemical and biological weapons sites. he should have asked for complete opening of the assad regime's archives on its dealings with iran on the nuclear program like the reactor. he should have asked for guarantees that the new regime in damascus will resist turkish efforts in northern syria, that he will bring into a real

broad-based government the kurds in eastern syria, the other minorities, and that he will make a serious effort for peace with israel. one more thing, that he kicks the russians out of the naval station and there a base -- th eir airbase a few miles away. he might not get all of them. i have other things. rachael: i was going to say. amb. bolton: show me you are not a terrorist. don't tell me you are not a terrorist. show me you are not a terrorist. rachael: let's talk about ukraine-russia. today in istanbul, it was putin's idea to meet with zelenskyy. he did not show up naturally. you think he is overplaying his hand. you have also said you think trump is being suckered in by putin, who is dragging these talks out. using there comes a point where president trump gets basically fed up with putin slowing this process down? could he and woody actually slap

shanks and john -- would he actually slap sanctions on putin? amb. bolton: he has conceded already. he has demanded that ukraine not be restored to its full sovereign integrity territory and integrity. he said there will be no nato membership for ukraine, no security guarantees for ukraine. that is the most putin could hope to get and has some plea encouraged putin to go further to demand that all four of the donbas provinces of ukraine to be ceded to russia, which he does not control militarily. these are the kinds of things that could push trump over the edge, because he does not want to be humiliated. but on the other hand, trump has gone a long way to appease putin. let me say one thing about the sanctions. europeans are preparing a package of sanctions.

it would be according to the press their 17th package of sanctions. we are in the same position. we put on sanctions time and time again. this is not the way to do sanctions. there is no reason after the invasion why all 17 packages should not come on immediately. sanctions only work when they are massive, when they are swiftly applied, and when they are strictly enforced. we just have not done that with russia. that is why russia continues the war. if you asked me if u.s. sanctions package seven is possible with trump, will it happen? yes? will it have more effect than the first six? i doubt it given the way we enforce sanctions. rachael: i want to zoom in more on president trump psychology here. as somebody who worked with him, can you speak to him as why he always uses the stick with butter zelenskyy and the carrot with putin? what is it about not taking up a

stick and saying you need to come to the table, fly to istanbul and say i am here, zelenskyy is here, where are you? why doesn't he do that? amb. bolton: trump sees international relations as the equivalent relationships to their leaders so if he is good friends with vladimir putin, he thinks the u.s. has good relations with russia. conversely, if he does not have good relations with volodymyr zelenskyy dating back to the famous perfect phone call that led to the first impeachment, then we have bad relations with ukraine. he sees it the same way with xi jinping. they are friends. when he met with kim jong-un, he said in response to a question a few days later, we fell in love. that is not the way kim jong-un, xi jinping,, and vladimir putin see donald trump. but would you slap your friends around gratuitously in public? no. you try to work with them.

would you slap people you don't like around in public? yeah, you do it all the time, including in the oval office. rachael: interesting. just to stay on this topic a little longer, can you take us into or give us a look at how president trump approaches these foreign policy decisions? does he go around the room? there has been this sort of narrative around president trump that he likes people who disagree and he likes to hear different things and then he decides. how was it when you worked for him? amb. bolton: it varies considerably. there is no pattern, and i think that is a problem with decision-making with trump. it is not disciplined. it is not driven by data and by options. it is very ad hoc. and often it is the last person who sees him who influences the decision. i thought this is the mistake i made before i took the job. i thought like every one of his predecessors that the gravity of the responsibilities in the

national security area, the enormous impact of the decisions that he would have to make would discipline his thinking so that the national security council process would present him with all the data he would need to move forward. it would present him with a range of options and give him the pros and cons of the options, and then he can make a decision. that is the farthest away from -- that is the farthest thing from the way decisions are made from the first term. from the outset, for the second term it seems like it has gotten farther. rachael: you said something along the lines of i should have chose to keep kellogg or someone else because that person only speaks when spoken to when you tried to push back on something? amb. bolton: you have been reading i am sure about the changes apparently that are about to be made in the national security council staff, which will radically transform what it

does and what the national security advisor does. it could be jake sullivan, your next customer will turn out to be the last will national security advisor. the event you were talking about was mike pompeo and i were in brussels with him in 2018 before the nato summit trying to persuade him not to withdraw from nato. and at one point, he turned to pompeo and said, you know, i knew i should have made keith kellogg national security advisor. he only gives me his opinion when i asked for it. well, the name of the job is national security advisor. so presumably, you advise. rachael: national security sidekick. amb. bolton: national security bag carrier. he wants somebody who will say "yes sir" and wants the national security staff according to reorganization reports but based on my own experience not to say,

"mr. president, have you considered a, b, c? have you thought about options x, y, z?" he just wants people to say, sounds good to me. rachael: you brought up marco rubio's latest job of a half-dozen or something like this. i can't keep track. you have been critical of his new role saying it is tough for him to be secretary of state and national security advisor. just walk us through, what was your typical 9:00 to 5:00 when you were in that job. it was probably not 9:00 to 5:00. 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. was there any room in your day to oversee the state department at the same time? amb. bolton: it is simply impossible to do. the circumstances when henry kissinger fill both positions were the depths of watergate when people thought nixon was cracking up. and he may have been. he stayed on in that position for some time after gerald ford became president until ford

himself recognized this was not working. we should be happy we had henry kissinger. it is no knock all on marco rubio. but there is only one henry the k. the positions really have very different functions. running the state department, being in charge of american foreign policy is more than a full-time job. doing the coordination work of the nsc to make sure the president has everything he needs to make decisions and then following up with the bureaucracies including the state department, including the defense, intelligence community, homeland security, all the rest of them is what the nsc does and you cannot do both simultaneously and fulfill what ben set up as the honest broker role for the national security advisor. rachael: what do you make of the new marco rubio? i am sure you happen watching some of the things he has been doing on the world stage.

once a big supporter of certain types of u.s. foreign aid. that is gone. cosponsor of a resolution to bar the u.s. from ever recognizing russia's, you know, ownership of certain parts of what was formerly ukraine, crimea. now russia saying we want all of these things, donbas, etc. what do you make of this makeover? amb. bolton: well, it is a fact that the president is the decision-maker on big foreign-policy issues. in any position in any level of government, you have to appreciate that your superiors can overrule you. if that gets you upset, you are really not suitable for government employment because much of your life is getting your positions overruled. the question at that level is, what positions that you lose the internal debate on so fundamentally contradict your basic philosophy that your integrity prevents you from

going any further. i think marco rubio has integrity. i think there is going to come a point where he will not be able to serve any longer. obviously we have not reached that point yet. after all, we had not had all of four months in the ministry should yet, and we only have 44 months to go. is there anything new coming? i which my point. other reached their points. rachael: there is this theory around senator lindsey graham, big defense hock, but also a trump ally. he employed a strategy of you pick your battles. you suck up to the president where you can. you buy and win some chip and you cash them in when you can forget i wonder if rubio is doing the same. you have been critical of steven witkoff. you called him a "disaster in the making."

what is your issue with him? amb. bolton: given his responsibilities in the russia-ukraine war and iran, just to take those two, he came to the job and knows nothing about russia and knows nothing about ukraine. he knows nothing about iran, nothing about nuclear weapons, nothing about nuclear arms control, nothing about verification and compliance of international agreements. what could go wrong? rachael: i think some trump allies would argue that is a good thing. amb. bolton: that is the argument. would you hire the country's best divorce lawyer to handle your next antitrust case? rachael: probably not. amb. bolton: probably not. look. i think he has already shown himself vulnerable to vladimir putin's manipulation. he conveyed it back to trump who promptly said it publicly that

the ukrainians are surrounded and are about to be slaughtered. that was not true, but that is what the russians wanted the world to believe. we can only imagine what other russian propaganda went through from putin to wycoff to trump. we have seen him take the word of the ayatollahs and their various "commitments" on the nuclear program. you know, i think it is a real danger for trump politically if he allows these negotiations to end in humiliation for the united states and him personally. rachael: so you are a big fan. a couple of last questions for you.one i believe . is a question you can all the -- when i believe you get all the time. the question, what is the difference between trump one and trump two? amb. bolton: he was more private before but less inhibited. whatever he wants to say and

says, but the confusion of personal business and the office of the presidency i think is a lot more visible. family business in the presidency are a lot more visible now. in the first term, i did not see at least that i understood at the time evidence of that mixture of the two things. i think you can see it in public now. and i think that is damaging for the united states, damaging for the presidency, and ultimately, damaging for president trump even though he does not see it that way. rachael: i just lost my train of thought on my last question for you, mr. bolton. oh, yes, i remember. i asked you what we did a podcast a couple weeks ago if you thought president trump was doing anything right. i want to revisit that because even since we talked a month ago, a million things have happened. what do you think he is doing well in foreign policy, national security? amb. bolton: is a stretch to get into it as national security, but there is a connection. i think he has closed the border

with mexico. he has done fairly quickly what he accomplished in the first term, and that is important not simply for illegal ambition but drug trafficking concerns, human trafficking concerns, espionage agents coming across the southern border, and he did it by relying on the theory of deterrence. if you are in central america or south america or china for that matter and you think walking to the rio grande across mexico will lead to you being turned away at the border, you are not going to walk across mexico. you are going to stay where you were and hope for a change in the administration. i think that is a very important political issue for americans for good and sufficient reason. and i think he has fulfilled his commitment to close the border for all intents and purposes. rachael: if he lands this ukraine-russian deal, which the previous person i interviewed up here, senator schmitt, things will happen, it would be huge. would you agree? would be.

would be. amb. bolton: in a paradise world. rachael: that is all the time we have. thank you. >> we have more now from the politico security summit with republican representative rick crawford of arkansas. he discusses intelligence and cartels at the u.s. southern border. after his right, we will hear about the trump administration from sebastian gorka. >> thank you, everyone, for showing up. getting to the tail end of a long day. we have congressman rick crawford the miniature of the house committee on intelligence. a lot going on these